How faith helped the monarchy flex

Understanding how the British monarchy has evolved, means understanding its foundation in faith. Ian Bradley explains.

Ian Bradley

Ian Bradley is Emeritus Professor of Cultural and Spiritual History at the University of St Andrews.

an etching shows William and Mary is a classical scene, priests stand to their right while dogs chew bones at their feet.

A broadsheet illustration celebrates William and Mary, and the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

Lambeth Palace Library.

Christian monarchy has played a central part in the history of the British Isles, promoting the rule of order, justice and mercy in conformity with the values of the kingdom of God and cementing a close alliance between the institutions of crown and church.

Both these aspects are well illustrated in the life and deeds of the first English king to convert to Christianity. Aethelbert, who ruled Kent from 587 to 616, seems to have come to faith through a combination of the influence of his wife, Bertha, the daughter of a Frankish Christian king, and the preaching of St Augustine, who arrived in Thanet in 597, having been sent from Rome by Pope Gregory. According to one account, 10,000 of Aethelbert’s subjects followed him in converting and underwent a mass baptism. Among his first actions as a Christian king were to issue the first set of laws in the English language and to grant land to Augustine on which to build an Abbey, which later became Canterbury Cathedral.

Reign responsibly

Exemplified by such figures as Arthur and Alfred, Christian kingship brought new titles as well as new responsibilities for Britain’s rulers. The first to be appropriated was that of ruling through the grace of God, or Deo Gratia, the idea that is still expressed on every coin of the realm through the abbreviation DG. The late eighth-century Anglo-Saxon king Offa described himself as ‘by the divine controlling grace king of the Mercians’. From the mid-tenth century, several English kings also began styling themselves Christ’s Vicar or deputy. Edgar, Alfred’s great grandson who ruled from 957 to 975, so described himself when founding a new monastery at Winchester in 966. Some years later Ethelred II stated that ‘the king must be regarded not only as the head of the church but also as a vicar of Christ among Christian folk’.

Cult kings

The Middle Ages saw the flowering of the cult of Christian monarchy as both splendid and servant-like, pious and chivalrous, full of knightly virtue, gung-ho triumphalism and miraculous powers, as exemplified in the widespread belief that the king’s touch could cure those suffering from scrofula. While Medieval monarchs cultivated magnificent splendour, they also espoused the theme of the servant-king and acknowledged their utter dependence on God’s grace. Both these elements were reflected in the civic triumphs staged around Epiphany or Advent for the entrance of monarchs into the cities of their realms with the king being portrayed as the type of Christ and the queen as the bearer of heavenly glory. Deliberately modelled on Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, they served as a reminder of the journey to be undertaken by all souls, including royal ones, towards death and the throne of heaven.

Moderate monarchy

The crown played a crucial part in the English Reformation which was initiated by Henry VIII with the help of his loyal lieutenant Thomas Cranmer. Together they created what was effectively a nationalised state church of a moderately Protestant hue with the monarch at its head, bishops and a conservative liturgy in English. Subsequent sovereigns made their influence felt on the emerging Church of England, with Edward VI steering it in a more Protestant direction and playing a key role in the preparation of the first English Prayer Book of 1549, and Elizabeth steadying it to produce the Anglican via media which has remained one of its distinguishing characteristics to this day.

The monarch's headship of the Church of England was a key part of the Reformation settlement. It was established in the 1534 Supremacy Act which declared King Henry VIII 'the only supreme head in earth of the Church of England' with full authority to intervene in its affairs. Elizabeth I modified the monarch’s title from ‘Supreme Head’ to 'Supreme Governor', which it has remained ever since. Alongside it goes the title of ‘Defender of the Faith’, represented on coins as F.D., originally given to Henry VIII by the Pope in 1521 for his defence of the traditional sacraments of the Catholic Church against the novel teaching of Martin Luther. Although revoked after the Reformation, it has continued to be used by and about all monarchs since, although its meaning has never been precisely defined.

Media monarchy

Stuart monarchs tended to push Christian monarchy in a more absolutist direction, being enamoured of the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings, although they also did much to forward Christianity in their realms. James VI of Scotland and I of England made a particularly valuable contribution in his patronage of the version of the Bible which still bears his name and is also known as the Authorised Version. He was adamant that it should not be a narrow reflection of a single theological position but rather an irenicon, or instrument of peace, breadth and moderation in the new United Kingdom over which he reigned.

Modified monarchy

The so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688-9, when James II was deposed because of his Catholicism and perceived absolutism and William of Orange invited by Parliament to occupy the vacant throne, effectively signalled the triumph of a covenant theory of monarchy over that of divine right. The constitutional settlement that followed it rested on a concept of limited monarchy and was based on an essentially secular concept of social and civil contract. However, neither the Reformation notion of the godly prince ruling the godly commonwealth nor the close connections between Crown and Church were swept away. Indeed, they were strengthened, with the role of the United Kingdom monarch as protector of Protestantism being expressed in the accession and coronation oaths still taken today.

Modern monarchy

Christian monarchy developed in nineteenth and twentieth century Britain to focus much more on philanthropy, civic duty and spiritual leadership demonstrated through attendance at religious services and public exhortation. The close relationship between the crown and the churches, and especially the Church of England, has remained strong while being extended in recent decades to other faith groups as the monarch has increasingly taken on the role of ‘Defender of Faith’. Television has made the monarch’s Christmas Day broadcast a significant national moment of spiritual reflection.

Podcast

Culture

Feminism

S&U interviews

14 May 2023

4 min read

My conversation with… Louise Perry

Re-enchanting sex. Yes, you read that right. Belle Tindall reflects on her somewhat spicy conversation with Louise Perry for the Re-Enchanting podcast.

Belle Tindall

Belle is the staff writer at Seen & Unseen and co-host of its Re-enchanting podcast.

A woman smiles as she speaks into a microphone. In the background is Big Ben.

Louise Perry recording at Lambeth Palace Library.

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Radical feminist. Counter-feminist. Arch-conservative. Progressive puritan: the name Louise Perry comes with a milieu of labels attached to it, and after spending a couple of hours in her company, I would suggest that not one of them can adequately contain her.

Louise has written and released an utter grenade of a book. Love it or loathe it, you simply cannot ignore it. The Case Against the Sexual Revolution is exactly what it claims to be, a thorough (and admittedly compelling) dismissal of the notion that the 1960s sexual revolution was a leap forward for the well-being of women. According to the book, the idea that it was/is some sort of feminist victory is simply a myth, or more sinister than that, a lie.

If Louise is wrong, she has boldly given us the opportunity to enjoy disagreeing with her and her provocative views. But if there is even an ounce of truth in what Louise is suggesting, then it surely needs to be shouted from the rooftops.

Personally, I found myself in both agreement and disagreement while speaking with her for the Re-Enchanting… podcast. I’ll start with the disagreements, of which I admittedly wish there were more.

Where I have tended to focus my feminist efforts on achieving equality among the sexes, Louise is promoting wellbeing.

Louise defines herself as an agnostic, I define myself as a Christian, we both define ourselves as feminists. And yet, in what is perhaps an unexpected turn of events, Louise sits in a more conservative space than I do when it comes to what that feminism tends to look like. Maybe that makes me the exact type of person for whom her book was written. Where I have tended to focus my feminist efforts on achieving equality among the sexes, Louise is promoting wellbeing. And, according to Louise, they simply are not always the same thing. A solution to a society where masculine attributes are always favoured is not, Louise suggests, to encourage women to assimilate these masculine attributes (for therein lies the ultimate flaw in the sexual revolution). Rather, we should demand that our society learn to value attributes that are distinctly feminine, such as motherhood.

In hindsight, I wish I had asked Louise what such a society would look like for me, who is not a mother. How can I be valued? Are women who don’t, for assorted reasons, fit the mould of wife and mother inevitably pushed to the margins of this kind of ideal? Is the discrimination that we may face simply a result of the un-traditional unfolding of our own lives?

There is so much truth in Louise Perry’s bleak diagnosis of our modern sexual ethic, it almost hurts to hear it. The thing is, it needs to be heard.

That, and her emphasis on evolutionary biology as the primary explanation behind sexual assault (something which, working at a rape crisis centre, she has witnessed the trauma of in close proximity), are where Louise and I come to a fork in the road and seemingly favour differing routes. Call it naivety, but I suppose I leave a little more room for redemption and innate goodness in my worldview (and therefore, a lot more room for the condemnation of societies that propagate male violence because I have decided to expect, and therefore ideologically demand, more from men) than evolutionary biology tends to allow.

Despite this, I would suggest that there is so much truth in Louise Perry’s bleak diagnosis of our modern sexual ethic, it almost hurts to hear it. The thing is, it needs to be heard.

We spoke a lot about ‘sexual disenchantment,’ something which she mentions in her book. In keeping with Max Weber’s definition of such, sexual disenchantment is the (very recent) idea that sex is meaningless; it is just one of the many social interactions we have on any given day, akin to making a coffee for a colleague in the office, or meeting someone for a game of tennis. There is nothing inherently unique, sacred, or distinct about it. At least, not if one decides there isn’t. Any meaning attributed to sex can be an added extra.

The interesting thing, according to Louise, is that while society may believe on some ideological level that this is true, most of us simply do not live like it is. Afterall, if there is no unique understanding of sexual activity, there can be no unique understanding of sexual assault. As Louise chillingly stated, if this were the case, rape would just be a form of theft. And yet- both instinctively and legally, that is not how we perceive it.

Therefore, whether we like it or not, Louise forces us to ask ourselves this deeply uncomfortable question: is such a disenchanted perception of reality truly benefitting women in the way that we have been told that it is? Or is she right, have we been sold a lie? Is it time to make a societal U-turn and re-enchant sex once again?

Listen to our episode of Re-enchanting… Sex with Louise Perry and come to your own conclusions. Whether you agree or disagree with what she says (or, as in my case, a little of both), you’ll be mightily glad that you did.